Co-Founder (1965-2010)

Benjamin Burks

International Director

Wendy Burks

Editor

Dr. George Crabb

Medical Advisor

Benjamin Smith

Kidz Club Director

A New Song

Some of my earliest childhood memories are wrapped up in the Adventures of Patch the PirateTM. Many afternoons, my siblings and I would travel to the jungles of Africa to meet Worry Warthog and Banana Man. Or we would climb aboard the Great American Time Machine, or enter the Misterslippi River Race, deserted on Big Toe Island. From the confines of our home with Patch the Pirate stories streaming through our little Fisher PriceTM cassette player, our imaginations took us on amazing journeys.

Perhaps my favorite tale from those delightful recordings is “Kidnapped on I-Land.” A young boy is taken captive by King Me-First when he listens to the king’s advice to be selfish. Once he realizes the cruel captor’s intentions, it is too late. The shackles of his selfishness have him chained in the Prison of No Sing-Sing, awaiting his death sentence at midnight.

Captain Patch the Pirate and his crew of sailors hear of his demise and quickly set sail to free the young boy. Shortly before the stroke of midnight, the rescue team arrives at the prison. Sad and depressed is the young boy as he laments his imprisonment. But Captain Patch encourages the young boy to look to the Lord for forgiveness of his selfishness and deliverance from his shackles. When he does, the prison bars begin to shake. King Me-First begins wailing as he slowly dissipates, and the shackles that once held the boy captive began to break away. The boy lifts his voice in praise to the Lord as he watches his state of captivity disappear before him.

Do you know someone being held captive in a prison of their own wrong choices? Or maybe that is you, shackled by a crippling secret in which you see no way out to freedom. Only one too young yet would not know the anxiety of being shackled by your own doings. Your story most likely mirrors the young boy in the story previously mentioned. It probably isn’t King Me-First who took you captive, but it is someone just as wicked. Your recreational drug use has now taken control of you. Heartache drove you to pacify raging emotions with a few drinks that led into a horrible drinking problem. After-surgery pills brought you a relief you hadn’t felt in a long time; and now, you will do anything at the cost of anything to get more. Your depression renders you useless to anyone and miserable to be around. The stories could infinitely go on.

You, or someone you love, may be in desperate need for deliverance from your horrible pit. I have good news for you! Jesus is that Deliverer! King David wrote of his experience in Psalm 40:1-3, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God…”

Friend, do not give up hope! Those verses could become your testimony or that of the one you love. But deliverance only comes from the Lord. Look to Him for your freedom. And when He does free you, it will be evidenced by a new song in your heart and mouth! As you glorify Him for what He will be doing for you and in you, you too will see the walls of your imprisonment begin to disappear.